mitt romney barely won as many votes as john mccain did in 2008. if you compare preelection estimates to exit polls, what you find is 5 percentage points of independents didn't show up. so the party that actually figures out how to represent these independents, and my hunch is many of them are these social liberal voters is going to be ahead in the demographic race. that's why you saw smart democrats actually run functionally libertarian campaigns. notice democrats who won, they ran on fiscal issues and distanced themselves from the president. they stole the rhetoric of fiscal conservatives. this is also why you found republican candidates who won, they ran on fiscal issues but they didn't emphasize abortion. over time, i believe the party that embraces this libertarian center of the public will come ahead in the demographic battle. the second point i'd like to make is about the tea party. some people think the tea party lost the election particularly in the senate. and the argument goes something like that this n. 2010 there was kristine o'donnell